


lessons in broken hearts (of sorts)

by pyromance



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (to me), Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Pre-Relationship, bad things happen but at least we've got each other, blue lions - Freeform, healers are very important, kind of, references to Greek mythology, sylvain's introspective journey in war or something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:42:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27165415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyromance/pseuds/pyromance
Summary: “Um,” Marianne starts, because initiating conversation is still difficult for her. “What happened?”The mare eats the apple in one bite, immediately moving back and making herself comfortable in her stall. There’s a moment of silence, a beat that stretches just too long for Marianne to be tricked into thinking it was nothing much, really, just a few injuries that took us by surprise.“Rodrigue is dead,” Sylvain says eventually. His voice sounds thicker than usual, the words sticking in his throat.Marianne replies, “Oh, um, I’m sorry,” and respectfully drops the subject.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Marianne von Edmund & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Sylvain Jose Gautier & Mercedes von Martritz
Comments: 10
Kudos: 65





	lessons in broken hearts (of sorts)

(Felix loses a training match to Sylvain and gives himself all of three seconds to feel sorry for himself before he’s stalking off to find a new sparring partner. 

“Felix,” Sylvain says, and almost feels shocked when Felix stops in his tracks, turning to stare at him. 

“ _What,”_ he replies, not quite snapping at Sylvain.

“Do you remember when we were kids, when you would come running to me for comfort, crying about every little thing?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Felix scowls, fist tightening around the training sword as though readying himself to spar again. Sylvain grins at him.

“You were so cute back then,” he teases, leaning on his training lance in a way that definitely risks breaking it. 

“Shut up before I take a page out of the boar’s book and skewer you.” 

Felix stalks off before Sylvain has a chance to reply, the training sword falling to the ground. Sylvain bursts into mirthful laughter, unable to be hurt by Felix’s words. It’s an empty threat; Sylvain knows, deep down inside, that there is nothing he could do to make Felix even want to hurt him. Instead, he’s just deeply, deeply in love--were any student to walk into the training grounds right now, they would think him mad to be so endeared.)

  
  
  


* * *

As with most things in life, things get worse.

Rodrigue dies, and asks for Dimitri. Felix hears it all--Sylvain _knows_ that Felix hears it all because he’s got Felix pressed against him on his mare, wounded but awake, entirely lucid, and if Sylvain is close enough to hear Rodrigue’s final words, then so is Felix. He stiffens in Sylvain’s hold, a sharp exhale leaving him and his eyes are fixed on Rodrigue, his _father,_ calling for the Prince and not _him._

“Come on,” Sylvain murmurs, and Felix startles as though waking up. “Let’s head back to the monastery.”

Felix doesn’t say anything, but he makes no moves as though he wants to stay, so Sylvain nudges his mare around, until they’re no longer facing Rodrigue and Byleth. He kicks his heels lightly, setting them off into something between a trot and a gallop, fast enough that they’ll make it to the monastery quickly, without jostling Felix’s injuries too much. Felix is silent the whole way. Sylvain doesn’t bother trying to lighten the mood--he’s intelligent enough to know it wouldn’t feel right.

Mercedes is waiting for them when they return, helping Felix off the mare and pressing him in the direction of the infirmary. Sylvain can see the glow of her magic as she moves him forward, Felix’s steps lightening as he heals. The temptation to follow is almost overwhelming, but Sylvain isn’t injured enough to warrant immediate attention, and he needs to make his way to the stables first. 

Marianne is the only one there, talking to Dorte, and she barely spares Sylvain a glance as he unsaddles his mare. Since she moved to the Blue Lions, the two of them have forged a quiet friendship based in part on the acknowledgement they are both in love with their best friend. It had only strengthened once they became two of four people still regularly sleeping upstairs, what with Dimitri disappearing at night and most others preferring to seek refuge downstairs.

They don’t make it a habit to hang out at every waking moment, but there’s a comfort Marianne brings in her demure nature, one Sylvain doesn’t have with anyone else. Her footsteps are quiet when she approaches his side with an apple for his mare (where she got it, Sylvain has no idea) and a soft smile for Sylvain, but there must be something on his face because it drops, a look of concern settling on her features.

“Um,” she starts, because initiating conversation is still difficult for her. “What happened?” 

The mare eats the apple in one bite, immediately moving back and making herself comfortable in her stall. There’s a moment of silence, a beat that stretches just too long for Marianne to be tricked into thinking it was _nothing much, really, just a few injuries that took us by surprise._

“Rodrigue is dead,” Sylvain says eventually. His voice sounds thicker than usual, the words sticking in his throat.

Marianne replies, “Oh, um, I’m sorry,” and respectfully drops the subject. Sylvain appreciates it.

He thinks about visiting the infirmary when he’s finished storing the saddle away, but decides against it. He wants to see Felix, but he wants to be _alone (_ there’s something like fear that stops him from going, too, even though he knows that objectively Felix will be fine, that Mercedes rivals Saint Cethleann herself in healing). Instead, he heads up to his room, finding himself mentally worn out, exhausted, from everything that’s happened.

(As he passes Marianne’s bedroom he sees a flash of pink in the doorway, and if Hilda flushes when he raises an eyebrow at her, well, that’s something he’ll have to take to the grave.)

  
  
  


* * *

Felix knocks on Sylvain’s door, which in and of itself is a rare occurrence, the man usually preferring to barge in, already ranting about whatever complaint (read: thinly veiled concern) he has this time. Sylvain knows something is wrong, _has known_ since he felt Felix tensing up all those hours ago, and he finds himself truly beginning to worry when he opens the door and Felix refuses to meet his eyes. 

Felix has always been tough, but Rodrigue is his _father_ and, from what Sylvain knows (almost everything), the source of much of Felix’s insecurities, his feelings of failure. For Rodrigue to mention Dimitri at his death--for Felix’s name to be uttered not one single time from his lips--well…

“Felix…”

“Shut up,” Felix mutters, but his usual heat isn’t behind it. He shoulders his way part Sylvain all the same, settling on his bed with his hands curled into fists by his thighs. He’s changed, Sylvain notices, out of his war uniform and into the same bedclothes Sylvain wears, products of the monastery, clothes which had still been in their drawers when they had returned five years later. Felix’s had still fit him, though were tighter around the shoulders, while Sylvain’s were almost a size too small. Nevertheless, they’re comfortable, and Sylvain will take anything to remind him of his days here five years ago.

He’s still harbouring a few injuries from battle, Sylvain can tell from the way he holds himself that the worst of it is healed, but the extent of his injury had left smaller wounds ignored, ones which would heal on their own to no ill effect. 

Sylvain works on them now, the last dregs of healing magic working its way through his system as he seats himself next to Felix on the bed. 

“We should move into Ingrid’s room,” he says, watching as a cut on Felix’s shoulder closes up. It’s not nearly as neat as Mercedes would do it, the scar still visible, but Felix never seems to mind.

“Don’t be stupid,” Felix mutters, ears turning red, and Sylvain can’t help but to smile fondly at him. It’s not like he can see it, his head still bowed down. 

“What? It’s not as though Ingrid sleeps there anymore, and closer to the stairs so we wouldn’t have to walk all this way to get to our rooms.” He doesn’t have to say the obvious: _and we wouldn’t pass by all those empty rooms._

“You make it sound as though we sleep together every night.”

Sylvain lets the double meaning slide, pausing where his fingers have slipped into Felix’s hair, close enough to a small incision near Felix’s eye to justify it, as he instead says, with full honesty, “I wouldn’t mind if we did.”

No one wants to be alone at night. They don’t have to say it but Sylvain sees it in everyone, in the way Dorothea follows Petra to her room, in how Annette and Lysithea will stay in the library together until late, neither of them wanting to leave before the other. It’s the most apparent in those living on the second floor, though; with Claude in Almyra and Edelgard, Hubert, Ferdinand and Lorenz working in (and for) the Empire, there’s a long stretch of rooms that lie empty, like relics of the past. Sylvain had peeked into Hubert’s room once, a couple months ago, and had felt such an overwhelming sense of _fear_ that he had slammed the door shut, locking himself in his room until Felix had called him down for dinner. 

Ingrid and Caspar both sleep downstairs, now, and while Dimitri _technically_ uses his room, he disappears at night to _goddess_ knows where. As such, it’s impossible for only four people to fill up an entire floor, made worse by Sylvain and Felix’s rooms sitting at the opposite end to Hilda and Marianne’s. So they don’t ever talk about it, but Felix visits Sylvain’s room often enough, craving anything but the soul crushing loneliness that creeps in at night. And if they wind up curled around each other, holding each other through the night, they don’t talk about it.

After all, they’ve done this dance a thousand times before (since they were kids, in all technicality, though it was different back then). Sylvain will lie back, tug on Felix’s sleeve gently, once, twice, grinning up at him with the face he knows only Felix will ever see. Felix will grumble, or roll his eyes, but lies down anyway, because as much as he pretends to be disdainful of Sylvain and everything he does, he craves comfort, contact, attention from him. Sylvain curls closer to Felix and doesn’t mention when Felix does the same, just holds him tighter. It’s as much for Sylvain as it is for Felix; that comfort, the security in holding each other, in knowing they’ve promised each other the world and they still haven't broken that.

Tonight is no different, until it suddenly is. Felix’s fingers tremble when they snag on Sylvain’s too-short sleeves, tugging him closer. Sylvain sits next to him on the bed, already accepting Felix when he sinks into his arms. He’s trembling, almost imperceptibly, and his eyes are shining the way they used to when he was barely eight years old, about to burst into tears over a skinned knee. 

(It reminds him so much of the Felix-before-Glenn-died that it _hurts_.)

* * *

“He didn’t ask for me.” Felix’s voice is raw, hurt marred with anger marred with sorrow marred with… resentment, of some sort. “He didn’t--” a pause, a choking sob cutting off his words “--I’m the last one _left_.” 

In the many years knowing Felix, Sylvain has learned to read between the lines. Knows what Felix means when he says things, because he’s never really been good at just saying _what he means,_ always shields his feelings behind a veil of insults, crude, brash language that anyone unfamiliar with him would find unbecoming. But Sylvain knows Felix, knows what he needs right now, knows when Felix craves comfort and security more than anyone else.

In a show of impulsivity, he presses a kiss to Felix’s forehead, entirely too aware of how Felix reacts to it, inhaling sharply before relaxing, minutely, in his hold. “You and me both, huh. If I have things my way, though, the Gautier crest will end with me.”

Felix huffs. “You say that like it won’t be easy.”

“Not if my father has any say in it,” Sylvain murmurs, darkly enough that Felix picks up on it, shifting onto one elbow to look Sylvain in the eyes. 

“If your _father,_ ” he spits the word with the same contempt he has for Miklan--more, even, “thinks he can have any say in your marital affairs after you help secure Faerghus a victory, he can go fuck himself.”

A sudden rush of fondness overcomes Sylvain, lips widening into a dopey grin that must look out of place, because Felix makes a face.

“What’s with that face,” he mutters, looking less angry than his tone suggests he should be.

“I love you,” Sylvain says, wholly, honestly. Felix’s expression shutters, and something like the five stages of grief flash across his features before settling on acceptance, affection. He lies back down, this time closer to Sylvain, curled up beside him. 

“I know.” He stares at his fingers, where they’re resting on Sylvain’s chest. After a long moment, he adds, “I don’t plan on letting my crest survive either,” and falls silent, already drifting off to sleep.

It’s enough of an admission for Sylvain.

* * *

Sometimes, lying awake at night, Sylvain wonders if they’ll ever be even a semblance of what they used to be. Not just himself and Felix, but Dimitri and Ingrid, all four of them, bonds woven so intricately it’s impossible to undo and yet, burned beyond recognition. Dimitri can’t look Felix in the eyes on a good day, and Sylvain knows that how ever much the two care for each other, love each other, raised almost as brothers, there will always be something in the way.

(He thinks, privately and with all too much malice, it’s in part the fault of Rodrigue, in how he treated Felix and Dimitri (and _Glenn)_ so differently, in how, in his eyes, Felix came second even after Glenn’s death, only this time Dimitri had taken Glenn’s place. Even when everyone else had thought Dimitri dead, Rodrigue had been single minded in his search, insistent that he _couldn’t be_.)

* * *

Sylvain is convinced the healers have some kind of natural telepathy-slash-empathy powers, because Marianne and Mercedes are sitting together at breakfast, and when they see Sylvain walk into the dining hall with Felix, they share a knowing look. Marianne even smiles at Sylvain, a tiny little thing, but it’s so rare that it’s a small victory every time it happens.

For all that these two are soft spoken, kind and gentle women, Sylvain is also terrified of the two of them together. That doesn’t stop him from seating himself across from them, Felix up against his side. He’s sitting closer than usual, and Mercedes pointedly looks at the point where their shoulders are pressed up against each other. Sylvain can practically feel Felix’s glare radiating by his side. 

“Hilda not here?” Sylvain asks, before Felix can do anything drastic like, say, attempted murder. (He would never, not towards Mercedes, at least.)

“Um, she’s still asleep,” Marianne says, in the midst of pushing a platter of fruit towards Sylvain. He snags a slice of apple, leaving the sour fruits for Felix to graze at. “She’s been having trouble sleeping, so, uh, I didn’t want to wake her.”

“Has she tried chamomile recently? I find that it helps me through even the worst bouts of insomnia,” Mercedes replies. 

“Well, yes, but um… our supplies ran out, and Hilda said it was too much trouble to get more, especially right now.”

Mercedes appears to be already constructing a list of supplies to buy in her head, adding _chamomile for Hilda_ to the ever expanding list, somewhere among _whetstones for Felix_ and _Albinean Moose_ (which is almost certainly illegally sourced). As she reassures Marianne she has enough to spare, Sylvain sneaks a glance at Felix. He looks, well, as spikey as he usually does, which is to say that for now, the memories of yesterday (last night) haven’t crept up on him yet. Or, maybe, he’s just as willing as Sylvain is to bask in the brief moment of respite he gets right now, pretending as though the world isn’t falling apart around them while they share breakfast together.

Sylvain can't fault him on that.

* * *

(“Most things in life get worse before they can get better,” Mercedes tells Sylvain one night, after a particularly rough battle that had left all of them in low spirits. Her healing magic is warm against his arm, like a hug from a close friend. “I read a story once, about a girl who was gifted a beautiful jar, but told never to look inside. Of course, she couldn’t help to look. Humans are curious by nature, and she was only doing what was natural to her. But when she opened the jar, everything rushed out; every bad thing in the world. Fear and death and war and heartbreak, all releasing into the world because of one girl who couldn’t keep her curiosity at bay. But, what she hadn’t realised at first, was that one thing refused to leave her, refused to leave humanity. She was nestled at the bottom of the jar, but smiled brightly at the girl, and she knew that it was hope.”

Mercedes turns her gaze on Sylvain, sharp and piercing despite the soft smile gracing her features. “Hope never leaves us, no matter how dire things may be. Sometimes, it’s all we can cling to, and that’s enough.”)

* * *

In his sleep, Felix looks peaceful. Sylvain clings to that look and imagines a world only a few years away, if--no, _when_ the war ends, when he can wake up every morning to see Felix like this. For the first time since the war started, Sylvain thinks he understands Mercedes’ story. 

* * *

(They move into Ingrid’s room a week later. Ingrid doesn’t even complain about it, just gives them That Look and packs all her important stuff in a bag to take to Mercedes’ room, where she lives now, apparently. Sylvain will gladly pretend that Marianne’s room is where the second floor ends, at least until they’ve won this war, and he knows Felix privately feels the same.)

**Author's Note:**

> [1] sylvain: ingrid, we r moving into ur room  
> ingrid: oh, so this is a 'we' thing now?
> 
> [2] i have taken so many liberties with the sylvain x marianne friendship but marianne is very important to me and i love her a lot. she originally had like half a paragraph + a passing mention but i couldn't help myself. also sylvain & marianne are precious... i personally believe they deserve best friend rights and also to bond over their traumas & respective love interests in their own special way <3
> 
> [3] yes, mercedes' whole speech at the end Is pandora's box, thank u for noticing. greek mythology probably doesn't belong in the fire emblem universe but pandora's box is one of my favourite stories and i can do what i want. also mercedes is sexy and i will take any chance for her to impart some Wise Wisdom on her friends. and to be sexy
> 
> don't be afraid to leave nice comments <3 this is my first work for fe3h so i'm a little nervous posting this lol. and hey, if u want some sort of sequel to this let me know! i have a couple ideas floating around


End file.
